In Her Own Words

One of the things I love about the first family God gave me is that we are, for the most part, a family of runners.  My Dad was a runner.  I used to love my runs with him.  My favorite Dad quote about running is: "it's like hitting your hand with a hammer--it feels so good when you stop".  My brothers were both track stars and are now p90X grads, Tara is a marathoner and I'm the caboose of the bunch, running along at the rear (sometimes behind a Chick Fil-A cow).  Once I even "brought it" with my little sis' Jamie when we finished a 5K dead last--together.  I wish I had a picture of that.

So, Tara left a comment on yesterday's laudatory post giving a run down of the race.  I thought it was great so here it is--the 2009 Marine Corps Marathon in her words:

"Tara is "bringing it" all the way to Boston where we will all gather in April to drink a pint in her honor." Hmmm... it'll be hard to run with all that pressure on my shoulders. ;) Just kidding, thanks for the nice post. I'm not sure if Philly is going to be my race, but I plan to leave it out there nonetheless. 

I loved the Marine Corps marathon this time around. Since I wasn't racing the marathon, I was able to really relax and take in the sites of the race that I always miss in my race induced misery when I'm running hard. The sites in DC were beautiful and the crowd support was great. My friend made a shirt with her name on it and it always made me smile when people yelled for her. It's actually just kind of amazing, how complete strangers come together and encourage each other and really want one another to succeed during a marathon. The signs that people brought down were amusing and I laughed out loud a few times. I wish I could remember all of them or had taken pictures, but I was, well, running. There was one that said, "Sweat is sexy" to which my friend responded, "Well, then I got a WHOLE LOT of sexy going on right now." I also remember passing a girl holding a sign that said, "If it were easy, I would do it!" That made me smile too.

I also loved running with someone else. I always kind of wondered why pacers did it. You don't get paid to be a pacer and the thought of running 26.2 miles basically for other people, strangers, didn't make sense to my competitive self. I always want to go out and run best times each time I run. (I don't, but I'm competitive like that.) But running with my friend, helping her finish with a new PR 18 minutes under her last one, encouraging her through the last few miles when I know she wanted to stop, having her tell me she hated me, it was all amazing. I felt such pride crossing the finish line. It might not have been my best time, but it was much more fulfilling than most of my other races. And when I got an email from her later thanking me, it really made me understand why people sign up to be pacers. I could definitely see something like that in my future.

Anyway, there is the marathon run down. It was a fantastic experience and really got me excited for my marathon in a few weeks. I don't know if I'll make Boston, but I'm sure going to enjoy a nice big Philly cheese steak after the race. :)

OCTOBER 27, 2009 12:11 PM